NORWAY'S 'NO' VOTE DOESN'T FAZE THE EU

by Tom Buerkle

(International Herald Tribune, November 30, 1994)

Senior European Union officials shrugged off Tuesday the decision by Norwegian voters to reject EU membership, saying the referendum raised questions about Norway's future but would not impede the Union's expansion.

Jacques Delors, president of the Union's executive commission, said he was disappointed by the outcome, but neither he nor any other EU officials professed any concern.

That is because the Union had already declared its latest round of enlargement a success two weeks ago, when voters in Sweden, the biggest candidate country, followed their Finnish and Austrian counterparts in approving EU membership.

The entry of those three countries in January will give the Union the economic and political impetus to begin considering the next, more difficult round of expansion, into Eastern Europe.

The new 15-member EU will be the world's largest and richest political grouping, with about 340 million people and a combined economic output of 5.84 trillion European currency units.

"The Norwegian people are running the risk of living next to a huge economic group whose rules they will have to respect without having a say in how they are established," Alain Lamassoure, France's European affairs minister, told French radio.

"Enlargement is being offered to free nations," he said.

"If they accept, fine. If they refuse, too bad."

Given that Norway rejected membership in the predecessor European Economic Community in 1972, Monday's result was not entirely unexpected, said Hans van den Broek, the EU commissioner who led the Union's negotiations with Oslo.

Still, the vote was a bitter personal defeat for Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

"It will now be more demanding for us to reach our goals, more demanding to be heard internationally," she said in Oslo.

She dismissed suggestions that she step down as head of the minority Labor Party government. But the daily Verdens Gang called the result "a formidable defeat for Brundtland" and said, "In the next few days, questions are bound to be asked about her personal position."

Some EU officials almost expressed relief at the outcome, given Norway's historical hesitation over Europe. Opposition has already surfaced in Britain and France to plans for furthering EU integration at a 1996 conference, and the inclusion of yet another member deeply divided about EU cooperation could have made the 1996 negotiations unmanageable.

One commission official welcomed the outcome, saying, "It's not good to be in a club when you don't want to be."

In France, the Gaullist presidential candidate Jacques Chirac used the result to attack Mr. Delors, his likely rival. Mr. Chirac, who has criticized the EU commission for meddling in national affairs, said the vote showed that commission policies "have alienated many Europeans."

Mr. Delors said the result should ease the fears of Euroskeptics because it demonstrated that "nothing is possible without the support of the people."

Tom BUERKLE